Nandita Sharma
(writer is a student of MA in Livelihood and Social Enrepreneurship in TISS, Mumbai)
Skill is defined as a set of capabilities and abilities that are developed by a person over a period of time. These are acquired through a process of skill development that involves deliberate effort, disciplined approach and most importantly sustainedsincerity. Skill development works towards strengthening the pillars to acquiring desired skills to keep up with the demanding nature of global changes and ultimately leads to human development.
Investment in skill development is an imperative in today’s time given the adverse labour environment. The rapid change in ecosystems are driving policymakers from all over the world to work towards creating an environment more conducive in terms of creating jobs and increasing productivity of their people. The necessity of expanding employment opportunities and corresponding skills is more pronounced for nations that wish to grow in an inclusive manner and alleviate poverty.
India with its 1.2 billion people and the world’s largest youth population, is stepping into an arena where investment in skill development is necessary for many social reasons apart from just the economic benefits. With the youth bulge, comes a teeming number of jobseekers. They contribute majorly in the unorganized sector which absorbs more than 90% of such job seekers.
While insufficient employment opportunities remains a problem, high unemployment rates are also a function of skill mismatches, wherein the workforce is inadequately equipped to meet the modern day demands for skilled labour.
70% of the Indian population resides in rural areas and depends mostly on agriculture and allied activities for a living, with several tradition based occupations. Climate change that hampers agriculture and other market demand for resources force migration to cities for employment. However such migration also requires rigorous skill updation to cope with the highly competitive economic environment.
The need of the hour is to revamp India’s human resource to meet her new growth story, where she competes at a global scale. Although the intent of the government is to expand skills and support structures and get all the stakeholders to align with the new ecosystem, the skill programs in the decentralized system need to be re-engineered to come to a more holistic, accountable and long term solution.
Initiatives need to be focused on fighting the problem at its very core, to alleviate factors that prevent skill development and not merely at reducing the skills mismatch at a superficial level. Social protection policies that facilitate labour participation, allow mobility, and the matching of skills and job need to be formulated. Initiatives currently undertaken are hindered by weak governance, poor incentives and weak coordination which dampens the overall program objectives.
In order to better understand the problem and intervene at its very inception, it is pertinent to appreciate the impact that all phases of human development have on shaping a resource. A child’s early development from the age 0-6 years contributes to their overall skill development. The factors that contribute to the anthropometric indicators of a child are products of the nutritional intake of both the mother and the child since the very time of the conception of the child.
These indicators are strongly linked with the development of cognitive and behavioral skills,and are very crucial to be worked upon/invested in a child’s early development. These skills are reflected in later years in terms of the child’s capacity to cope with the system. Serious handicaps are inflicted early in life when children are malnourished or are insufficiently stimulated. Studies show a direct correlation between school dropout rates and a child’s poor health conditions.
Research shows that improper early child development can have very serious implications (poor learning outcomes) and are very difficult to remedy later in life and that investing in this direction can have high-payoffs. A step in this direction would be interventions based on educating women on health and birth, post-natal care, provision of play schools, especially in the rural areas would aid to the factors contributing to skill development at an early age.
Further, apart from intervention at a child’s early age, our school education system is also wanting in several regards and requires attention. The performance indicators need to be redefined. ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) 2014 indicates that close to half of all children who finish eight years of schooling, do not learn basic skills in arithmetic. This poses a great threat to skill development since even the ‘educated’ pool is in a lot of cases inept at applying basic skills learnt at schools in the real world.
Such a failure of the system also indicates a pressing need to introduce certain accountability norms within the education system. A regulatory framework needs to be introduced wherein the right amount of autonomy is allowed to educational institutions and a certain accountability is expected in return. Also, in India, there is a high rate of school drop-outs and there should be a second-chance education and training provision to support and skill the unemployed youth.
Further, it is time we recognized that education and training imparted in school does not suffice the need for skills required on the job, which is why there is a serious problem of low returns on work effort. In this regard strengthening vocational training systems across the country may be of significant assistance. A possible approach can be that the curriculum of higher secondary school include vocational training courses that can be opted by the students as per their inclinations and would run parallel with the regular curriculum. This will allow for individuals to gain hands on experience prior to dedicating themselves to an industry. School curriculum should also be suitably modified in order that analytical skills, logical reasoning, quantitative and qualitative data analysis etc.skills can better develop. Along with this the performance and result indicators need to be worked upon and should be in linewith the industry requirements.
The focus should also be on creating a pool of employable human resource, given the needs of the economy and not just institutional education. Programs on different career space and prospects could be organized by private companies and universities and mandatory career counseling at the secondary schools may also help in this regard.
Instead of the one size fits all approach, systems must become sensitive to the diversity of thoughts and ideas of the Indian youth that often extend to their professional abilities as well. The space for frugal innovations-‘Jugaad Systems’ and social innovations are at the heart of the people in India. Nurturing of these endeavors with the aid of proper support systems is vital for ensuring that these innovations see the light of day.
Environments need to be created to link these innovation-specific skills with a strong support for adequate investments. This can be achieved through collaboration between universities and companies. Another important aspect of skill development that requires immediate attention is re-skilling. Re-skilling of vulnerable workers, mostly the agriculture and forest dependent communities, who fall victim to vagaries of climate change need to be educated and trained in emerging technologies and agricultural innovations.
Similarly, artisans dependent on their traditional professions need to be trained on design and marketing aspects apart from being provided institutional support. With the advent of Information and Communication Technology (“ICT”) and a plethora of ICT initiatives and infrastructure from the government that seep deeply into many villages of India these structures can also be utilized to impart training and other allied activities. Internet based dissemination of information through videos and write-ups by experts, youth mobilization through publicizing of success stories etc. should be initiated. Apart from imparting knowledge, an introduction to internet based marketing techniques and entrepreneurship models should be encouraged.
It is pertinent to note that understanding the skill gaps in all the sectors as well as the existing skill capital of people is important for the interventions to be inclusive. Making use of the existing structures that could be conducive in skill training and crafting policies for the different beneficiaries in all the sectors is important for the solutions to be holistic and sustainable. Interventions based upon a comprehensive ecosystem study and the contributing factors of skills in a person is the way to go.
Studies to analyze the factors in the global-driven market and the demands that shoot off of it, the urgent conditions that it creates for people to upgrade their skills and increase their vulnerability. A solution based on the study of job/occupation sectors that absorb the maximum workforce, the patterns that have emerged out of time, the occupational trends, the causes for such patterns all add to aiding the framework of the policies and systems that need to be created.
An approach based out of performance measurement and benchmarking, case studies, policy and program evaluation and cross-sectoral approaches that focus on individuals throughout their lifecycle will provide a solution based approach and would provide for a platform for exploring reforms in the skill development domain.
Targeted policies for skill development for different structures, existing and new, are very important and to invest in making the ecosystem more conducive to change. Skills are at the core of improving individual’s employment outcomes and increasing countries’ productivity and will define the future growth of the country. Time has come to realize the importance of skill development and appreciate the value of existing skill set and expertise in our country.
Disclaimer: The view expressed in the article is of the writer and not of THE SABHA.
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